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Vulcan Raven
was one of the renegade members of FOXHOUND who took over Shadow Moses with the Genome Army. He was a Shaman and was raised in the cold state of Alaska. Biography Early Life and Career Vulcan Raven was born to Alaskan Indian and Inuit (Eskimo) parents, though he hated the word "Eskimo" used by white men. He had a large tattoo-like raven birthmark across his forehead and petroglyph tattoos covered his body. Raven was raised as a shaman by his people, giving him shamanic intuition and spiritual abilities. He graduated from the University of Alaska and spent a few more years living in his homeland. He took part in the Eskimo-Indian Olympics, and won many Muk-tuk eating and Ear Pull contests; an event where two opponents pull each other's ear while enduring the harsh cold, intended to test both spiritual and physical strength. He also enjoyed trapping deer within Alaska's perilous Brooks Mountains as a hobby. On one trip across the frozen Bering Strait to Siberia, Raven met then-GRU operative Revolver Ocelot.http://natmal.net/mgsdb/?enc&id=115 After that, he joined the Soviet special forces unit Vympel. After the fall of the Soviet Union, he was demoted along with other Vympel operatives following Boris Yeltsin's coup in 1993. Raven decided to leave Russia and become a mercenary for hire. Years later he joined Outer Heaven. The destruction of Outer Heaven was Solid Snake's first mission, but Raven and Snake did not meet on this occasion. With Outer Heaven in ruins, Raven, on the recommendations of Revolver Ocelot, joined FOXHOUND, becoming the unit's heavy weapons/explosive ordnance specialist. During his FOXHOUND years, he excelled at using a portable modification of the M61A1 20mm multi-barreled autocannon (hence the word Vulcan in his codename), which is widely used on American military tactical aircraft such as the F-16. Eventually, he and the other members of FOXHOUND (Liquid Snake, Decoy Octopus, Sniper Wolf, Psycho Mantis, Revolver Ocelot, and Genome Soldiers) grew tired of their roles as puppets to the government, and took over the nuclear disposal facility on Shadow Moses. As Solid Snake travelled across Shadow Moses, he encountered an M1 Abrams tank with Raven as its commander. Snake destroyed the tank by throwing grenades into the open hatches as the gunner and loader tried to deal with him. Later in the mission, Snake faced him a second time inside a freezing cold warehouse. Here, Raven fought Snake with his M61 Vulcan cannon, though was ultimately defeated. In his final moments, Raven offered Snake a "hint", telling him that the DARPA Chief whom Snake had met and saw die was actually Decoy Octopus. He did not explain why or how he was killed, or why he was disguised in the first place, but declared that Snake would always follow a life of bloodshed wherever he went. He also vaguely alluded to the fact that Snake was an artifically conceived clone, stating that he and Liquid "are from another world", one which he didn't wish to know. As he made this declaration, he was eaten alive by his own ravens, becoming "one with them." Trivia *After his M1 tank is defeated by Solid Snake, Revolver Ocelot warned Raven that Snake should not be underestimated. Raven responded by reminding Ocelot of his own defeat and addressing him as "General Ivan" (Ivan is an ethnic slur towards Russians or someone of Russian descent). *Along with the Muk-tuk eating contest, he was also alleged to have excelled in the Ear Pull and Four Man Carry events, in the Eskimo-Indian Olympics. Raven was also able to do the four man carry event with six men. Behind the Scenes *In the 1998 E3 promo, Raven's name is misspelled as "Valcan Raven." *Killing any of the ravens on the way down to the warehouse will cause Raven to scold Snake for "killing his friends." *A McFarlane action figure of Vulcan Raven appears in the Tanker chapter of Metal Gear Solid 2. It is positioned in front of a flashlight, giving not only the player, but also Snake and Otacon, the impression that Raven himself is standing around the corner, M61 in hand. It also appears in one of the flooded rooms in the Big Shell where it floats amongst other pieces of debris. Shooting it (in the Tanker chapter) will cause it to "speak" and fire small BB pellets. These pellets are shot out of the toy M61 Vulcan autocannon at a very low velocity, so they don't pose much of a threat. *Yukitoshi Hori, the Japanese voice actor of Vulcan Raven, later voiced The Sorrow, who coincidentally is also a spiritual medium and a practitioner of the supernatural. Gallery File:Mgs-vulcan-raven.jpg|Character design by Yoji Shinkawa. File:Mgs-sketch-raven.jpg|Artwork used for promotional postcards. File:Vulcanraven.gif|Raven's depiction in Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes. References de:Vulcan Raven Category:Game Boss Category:Mercenary Category:MGS Characters